A Compulsory Research Report Submitted to Mzumbe University – Mbeya Campus College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Award of Bachelor Degree of Laws (LL.B) of Mzumbe University
This research is about on critical assessment on the laws for the liability of lawyers (advocates) for professional negligence in Tanzania, study narrates the relationship between an Advocate and the client pointing ought that an Advocate may be held liable for a tort of negligence if he fails to exercise that due care skill and diligence expected from him/her in the discharge of his/her legal duty to the client. The standard of care required by the law of torts is not that of the most skillful man, but that of a person reasonably skilled in legal profession. On the other hand, the standard is higher than that of an ordinary person. Although, in Tanzanian there is laws for regulating advocate conduct, but still lawyers do practice negligence conduct which resulted to economic loss to the client. Example filling a plaint in court with no Jurat, missing limitation dates, failing to identify heads of loss which should be recovered, Providing incorrect Legal advice.
The leading assumption under this study is that advocate are involving much in this problem because people are not aware on their rights against an advocate who acted negligently when conducting professional duties on behalf of the client which is resulted to economic loss, there is no clear provision of the laws which provided clear procedure and remedies to the aggrieved person due professional negligence.
Throughout the field research various methods of data collection were used includes primary method of data collection where the researcher used an interview questioner and group discussion. In interview the researcher used structured and unstructured interview for questioner method a researcher employed open ended and close questions also in some circumstance focus group discussion was crucial and used by a researcher. As well as secondary data collection.
But in the outcome, it was found that the composition, functions and powers of these committees hinders the independence of judiciary since the officers involved tends to use their powers to affect the impartiality of the judicial officers. Therefore a researcher recommended that to solve this problem there is the need of amending the laws especially advocate act cap341 and its regulations , there should be compulsory indemnity to cover the situation or compensation fund should be formed under TLS, there should be a propriety education to people concerning their right against legal practitioner lawyers(advocate).